


Tower Dwellers

by PurpleFluffyCat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Backstory, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Community: hoggywartyxmas, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 17:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20821415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleFluffyCat/pseuds/PurpleFluffyCat
Summary: On Christmas Eve, Aurora takes in the universe, and the neighbouring turret. Which is further away?





	Tower Dwellers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DelphiPsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelphiPsmith/gifts).

> Written for the incomparable Hoggywartyxmas party on LJ, for delphipsmith.
> 
> JKR's characters; I just like to play. Also, a tip of the hat to Philip Pullman here, (see if you can spot it!)

They say we are similar, she and I. _The Ladies of the Towers_.

It sounds like some kind of awful melodramatic play, doesn't it? The sort written by sighing poets a century ago, in between pruning their garden follies and reapplying their rouge.

The thing is, I laugh at the melodrama of how I ended up here, at once trapped on this turret and content with my friends – my only true friends, who twinkle down from their lofty plinths, millions of miles above.

I have to laugh, or I might cry.

It is a still night. I can see my breath hanging in eddies and huffs like a timid Patronus, before it atomises into nothingness. Leo looks down regally, and the Seven Sisters gossip away. The fish have stopped their swimming, in amnesty with the Great Bear who also pauses. They seem expectant. Of what, I am unsure.

I can see her tower from the very edge of mine. It is hewn from the same stone, but the quality of light is different. I prefer the dark, with a clean glow of wandlight only where necessary; she seems to do anything to keep the purity of the dark away, with coloured lamps, feathered fringes and mirrored beads all pooling together into an insistent, muddy glow.

I never see her, but I see _evidence_ of her. She hasn't any company, and yet I know where she sits at her dressing table, combing her hair for hours, as the rhythmic glint of her silver hairbrush interferes with my Westerly telescope. I know how she paces around and around her tower, carrying a candle as if to ward off spirits. The flickering circles speed up into a frenzy, and then come to a sudden stop. I wonder if she feels better then, or if she has collapsed into sobs; there are some things that the light cannot show. I know when she finally goes to bed - the glimmer ascending her turret and dimming softly - but it is never properly dark up there.

Her tower is a refuge; a retreat; a cocoon. Mine is a pinnacle; a launch pad. On a still night like this, I can stand on tiptoes and almost... touch...

Impulsively, I reach up and hold the night in my outstretched arms. North winks at me from his cocksure position on the horizon, and Virgo, despite her better judgement, smirks. We are on good form, tonight.

I have always preferred stars to people. Stars are reliable, interesting, and pleasant company. Stars do not threaten, do not murder, and are not cruel. Stars are eternal, and communing with them brings a sense of peace that most Witches – forever bound in this torrid earthly roundelay – will never know. I am happier up here, away from all that trouble and grief, I tell myself. I do not mind that I cannot leave; that it is not safe for me to walk _down there._

Not safe? Indeed, yes.

I presume you have heard of the Palazzo di Sinistra? That edifice that has loomed over the very centre of Wizarding Napoli for over six-hundred years – first as a sign of progress, then glory, then power, then oppression – and for the last hundred or so, what _they_ call distinction, and what most of the world call _terror._

Everyone back home knows the name ‘Luigi Sinistra’ as one of the greatest Wizarding crime-lords in the history of Italia. He is not so much _my_ father, as The Father. Papa. Il Grande. _The Boss._ His influence reaches down to the heel, and through the toe to comrades in Sicily. To the North, all of Campania of his, but then one enters a bitter war-zone with the Veleno family of Roma. Farmhouses disappear in the night. Men are killed over shipments of Chimaera eggs and Venomous Tentacula seeds, and cafés in that region have to pay 'protection' to both allegiances.

In Napoli, all Wizardkind are afraid. If you step on the wrong side of Sinistra and his cronies, you will not step for much longer. Pretty much any business or family in the city is either in the racket, or on The List. Trust me, you _never_ want to be on The List. 

Vast wealth has been accumulated this way, and still flows through the Sinistra vaults like golden honey. In a city where many Wizarding folk are patching their sun-worn robes, and asking their Muggle neighbours if they might borrow some pasta, the Palazzo di Sinistra drips with rubies and diamonds, and is laid with rugs made from Thunderbird pelts and Demiguise fur.

Such opulence comes at a price, of course: a human price. As a child, I was not allowed to mix with people from outside the palace – "ragamuffins and oiks and Veleno spies". Sending me to school would have been a stupid liability, and pointless, besides: daughters of _La Famiglia_ are sold in marriage-trade when the time is right, so why bother educating them past clothes and poise? 

As a little girl, I would climb up to the towers and gaze out – past the crumbling rooftops of the city, past the turquoise sea that lap-lap-lapped at the foot of the old castle, the sunlight glibly glinting on the surface, as the ocean caressed the decrepitude below. I would gaze and seek and hope for _something. _

_Anything,_ really. Anything but here. Anything but _this._

I imagined the far-away worlds I had seen in the old library – where children bathed in mountain streams, or made gingerbread men with kind grandmothers, or scampered through the snow with their friends from the village. I even yearned and ached for the chance to run free on the dusty streets below; to play skip-rope, or to swim in that uncaring, never-ending water on the horizon – to get lost in it, and never come back.

Everyone below was frightened, and I hated the fact that the Sinistras were the cause. Wizards and Witches were routinely tortured in the Palazzo dungeons; their screams permeated the whole house and gave me freakish, trembling nightmares. You could hear it everywhere – the hallways, the bedrooms, the parlours. -Everywhere, that is, apart from the towers – and the towers were where I would retreat at night when the reverberating shrieks curdled my blood and the tears streaked my cheeks. That is where I first found the stars.

I remember looking up one night when I was seven or eight years old. I couldn't sleep; I was shaking from the awful noises from below, my imagination conjuring something probably only slightly less bad than the truth. I looked up and found this astonishing canopy of light and pattern, beckoning and twinkling – so far away and yet so immediate to me. I imagined I could sail away from there to some distant place in the sky, skipping among the cosmic lanterns and never having to return. It was a fantasy that then sustained me through most of my childhood.

The constellations became my friends. I learned their names and their characters, and we told each other elaborate stories of exploration, discovery and escape. I confided with Cassiopeia and swashbuckled with Orion, and then rode Pegasus into the velvety night. I gained prudence from the scorpion and the crab. The Dog Star walked with me, around and around the balcony of the turret, howling into empty space.

I don't know why I was born 'soft', as my parents would have it. My mother – if she ever considered me, in a rare break from her couture dress-robes and red-painted nails – would deny my father's accusations that it was _her_ fault. My brother – eight years my senior – was already joining in with the violence. He would gloat over the curses he had learned and receive manly praise for the victims he had made to writhe and faint; the whole thing made me feel sick.

Indeed, with such inclinations, I always _had_ to prefer stars to people.

As I grew older, my escapism became an academic interest. I was still not allowed to go to school and mix with common children, but my parents did employ terrified tutors who were supposed to make me marriage-ready, and generally keep me from under their feet. With little supervision, I could press on a topic as much as I wanted, and demand books to reach past the limits of my tutors' knowledge. What I wanted to know about – more than everything else put together – was the stars.

I learned about the planets and their orbits, the moons and the asteroids. I interpreted the ancient Astronomical calendars of the Persians, the Maya and the Greek. I calculated distances, angles and moments; time and momentum; vibrations and resonance. Most of all, though, I came to know about the deep magic of the universe: where magic comes from, and where it goes – briefly surging through those of us mere mortals with wands on its unassailable journey outward and onward. Yes; we Witches and Wizards are but brief conductors of magic – magic that surges so brightly in worlds beyond, never stopping, ever expanding, seeming to beckon us forth without even knowing that we exist at all. 

Such thoughts – that there was more to the world than this place, this Palazzo, this _prison_ – gave me comfort. I imagined I could be out there – riding particles and waves of elementary magic, joining it as it soared away.

My eye catches something in the north-westerly quadrant. It is the merest shimmer, but a sign of erratic magical energy, to the trained eye. An imprint hangs there; black smudged with gold. The universe seems lively, this night.

I look over again, at her tower. The hanging crystal knick-knacks have been joined by fairy-lights and glittery baubles for the time of year; I have been using extra shades on my telescopes all week. There is an odd purple colour joining the lime green, and they merge into a kind of puce.

The extra lights catch the eddies of movement within; they pick out a swaying path – maybe even dancing. I wonder whether she can feel the sky's energy. Does it surge more strongly through her – poor, weak conduit that she is?

The Sight, as she would have it, is an inherited gift. As someone who has inherited as little as possible, I am innately uncomfortable with the idea... but it might be true. There is much of our fates that we cannot escape, after all.

_I_ escaped when I was seventeen. 

I crept through the Palazzo gates after one of my tutors, with a Disillusionment charm and an Expanded handbag full of clothes and a bit of gold. From there, I tricked through the maze of streets to the port, before I could be missed – and immigrated illegally to England on a Muggle tanker ship filled with crates of tomatoes. It wasn't difficult to board; the crew weren't looking out for Disillusionment charms, after all. After three weeks of that journey, I can say one thing with confidence: I _hate_ tomatoes. Absolutely despise them. I shudder at the very _sight_ of a tomato.

On arriving, I gave myself up to the Ministry in London, and collaborated with the International Wizengamot to bring some halt to the crimes of my family. The proceedings lasted three years, in which most of the dealings back home went quiet, and the leaders polished their respectable cover operations. You would never have guessed that the Famiglia Sinistra also run a wedding parlour and a quaint Naming Seer business – but there it is.

Ha; that gives me pause, every time I think on it. _Aurora_. 

A newborn's visit to the Naming Seer was always an important rite in my family – and yet, for the strange, nocturnal little girl, 'the goddess of the dawn' never seemed to fit. It was another reason my parents were unimpressed with their offspring, I daresay.

As it turned out, the operation caught just some associates – a few distant cousins and tools on the ground. My father bribed two of the highest judges, and poisoned the third. And so: Luigi Sinistra is _still_ one of the most powerful crime lords in Italia – but now with a loathing of his only daughter that is stronger than his love of gold, of status, and of blood. If they find me, they will kill me. As simple as that.

The UK representative on the International Wizengamot offered me protection. When he discovered that I was skilled in Astronomy, it became a deal: Albus needed an Astronomy Professor, and I needed a place to not be killed. You might say it's quite a brutal kind of deal, but there it is.

Slowly, I walk around the perimeter of my balcony. I move quietly, not disturbing the cool, still dark. To the East, I see the village, nestled between the lake and the mountains – a small string of popcorn lights leading to the bedecked tree by the church. I have never walked down there, but sometimes wonder whether it would really be so very risky? To buy a book from the emporium; to have a glass of something in the tavern; to feel the crunch of snow and gravel beneath my boots. Then, I remember my father, and I know the answer.

Of the people here, only Albus knows my story. Indeed, only he knows my _name_. To the other staff and the students, I am Finella Vantutti - half-blood witch from a non-descript suburb of Roma. My parents, Marco and Emmanuella, were a Healer and housewitch before they died. I didn't go to school, but had tutors at home, because my mother was ill. It's best to keep some things as close to the truth as possible. I had two chickens, and a cat called Bianco. It has been quite fun, imagining what it would have been to have a normal life, but Finella has her frailties – after all, there must be _some_ reason she never goes outside.

Ironically, it was only when I came to Scotland that I understood _Aurora_. The Northern Lights; the Midnight Dawn. The first time I saw it, I wept. The lights and colours danced like dragon-ghosts, ice and magenta and green, bubbling flame. The magic within me – within the universe – sang. It was like coming home.

Do you know the old myth about the Lights? The one told by Inuit and Celts and Finns, alike. It is said that when the magic swirls and dances in the night sky so brightly, the boundaries thin between our world and the next. The ghosts in the castle feel it, I'm sure. They become agitated, swooping from room to room as if they must run ever toward something that is just out of reach. 

I am sure that she feels it, too. It makes me wonder how truly _alive_ she is – teetering on the brink between here, and elsewhere; forever partly present and partly gone. Both halves cast only faint shadow, and this corporeal world is difficult to navigate. Or perhaps, she is just ‘delicate’.

As far as I can tell, her upbringing was perfectly ordinary – schooling at Hogwarts, holidays in some little Cornish village, parents loving but non-descript. It sounds wonderful. She did nothing in particular before coming back to teach, as rumour will have it – drifted around, being ineffectually outraged when people wouldn't give her a job that she felt befitted her status as a Seer. 

But that was before the Prophecy, of course.

Yes; I know about her Prophecy – made on a gloomy night about a year ago. Albus told me, perhaps out of pity – though to whom, I am not quite sure. Perhaps he thought that she and I could be friends.

Of _my_ story, only Albus knows – and in that she and I share a confidant; a sponsor; a saviour; a jailer. I wonder whether that is a thread to bind us – a strand of Acromantula silk stretching from rook to rook through the vast empty air around us.

Indeed, Albus is kind, but he has little time for his sheep. The other staff think I am rather odd – and I suppose I am. I cannot tell them the truth; clever and good-natured people still do talk. 

Don't get me wrong; I'm not a recluse. They are pleasant enough, and I do go down to dine with them, sometimes. We discuss the students, and they might ask for my advice about the phase of the moon, or the procession of Mars. I just prefer it, up here. Perhaps old habits are hard to break, and old friends are hard to abandon.

In the year she has lived here, I have seen her in the castle precincts only a handful of times – usually swaying with a dazed expression, or scurrying back up the stairs to the safety of her tower. 

She drinks. To excess; it's obvious. I don't, although sometimes I wish I would. It might be easier that way – finding simple, unvarnished truth at the bottom of a bottle, with the profound clarity of the very drunk. Perhaps it helps her to feel the magic in the sky – or to block it out.

I walk around my battlements again, boots falling softly on the flagstones. The night feels tense, now; still and black, like a Matagot lying in wait. I sigh, and the Twins cock their heads in askance.

Trouble is rife in Britain, and it's said that this 'Voldemort', this self-styled 'Dark Lord', has designs on Europe, too. It is no surprise that my family have made friendly overtures to him. My grandfather has been one of Grindelwald's followers, you see. Of course he had been. He travelled north and crossed the Alps to join the pureblood forces, and was promised that the name of Sinistra would be elevated to rule all Italia when victory spread south. 

That didn’t quite work out, but Luigi Sinistra is keen for another try. Muggle-baiting is a cheerful sport in _Cosa Nostra_, but above all, power likes power. Alliances come as second nature – the more ruthless, the better.

Revenge for lost family honour is a serious business – so my being here, as an acolyte of Dumbledore's, makes my betrayal even more symbolically, deliciously, poetically blood-curdling, if they were to ever discover it. 

She and I are both caught up in this war, then – and not entirely of our own doing. Are we pawns or players in this game of megalomania and magic? Does the force of the universe understand any more the games of wicked men?

I shake my head and fix my eyes above. One day, I hope to be able to use my name again. It would mean that they are defeated, and I am free. Free to walk in the twinkling village, and free to write my book. Free to see the celestial aurora and claim her as my own.

It is four years and counting, though. I will away the tears that prickle the sockets of my eyes. For now, here we stay: she in her tower, and I in mine; forever looking out; looking in.

I hear the bells drift up from the village below, chiming midnight. Tiny glints process along the main street as the people hold lanterns. I can't hear them, but I imagine they are singing. _It's Christmas._

I gaze up again and gasp: it's happening, now. The sky is dancing. The aurora sweeps and surges - green and gold and pink like never before. Fingers of light and energy reach and pull me to the north of the world, and beyond. My heart leaps with faith that there _is_ more; more knowledge; more wisdom; more life.

I look across again to the other tower. Her lamp is still on behind the rheumy curtains. Perhaps I imagine it, but I think I see the drapes twitch.

I let out another sigh and Summon quill and parchment from my study, writing quickly, before I lose my courage:

__

> _Dear Sybill,_
> 
> _Would you like to come over to the Astronomy Tower for a glass of wine? Maybe we could talk._

  
I send off the owl and it flits through the sky with a lightness that looks something like hope. I turn back to my friends above, and smile. 


End file.
